PowerMail 3.1.2 for Mac User Reviews
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"Good application"
Version: PowerMail 4.2b1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
By far the most stable, trouble-free, well-rounded mail application I've seen in over 15 years. I'd buy this application again in a second. The staff at ctmdev is always Johnny-on-the-spot if there's an issue. Simple smooth interface and filtering is great. Once a user sets up the filters they perform almost invisibly. Multiple user environements is great and the ability to have the same user environment in OSX and OS9 (for those of use that still must boot into OS9 to work occassionally) is absolutely wonderful.
The only additions I'd like to see are inline attachements and the ability to add more alert sounds to the application.
Again, this is an absolutely wonderful application. -
"i like."
Version: PowerMail 4.1.3
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
i've been using Mail.app for a while now...probably six months or more...and have started getting really fed up with its limitations and stupid behaviors and finally put that impetus into action, did a little research, downloaded PowerMail, and i haven't been using it for long, but i'm really liking it. it's slick. i've been using OS X since before it became available to the public and in all that time PowerMail has been the ONLY app i've seen make good on Apple's promise that their Address Book would be an integrated thing that worked in concert with applications. even Apple's own Mail.app interacts with the Address Book (if you can call it interaction) in a laborious and confusing way; PowerMail takes a lame idea (Address Book) and makes it work smoothly, easily, and intuitively, and it also gives me back control in a lot of areas in which Mail.app offered none. i'm saving up $50.00 for this one... -
"Still has problems"
Version: PowerMail 4.1.3
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Haven't had a chance to install 4.1.3 yet, but after reading the bug reports, they still haven't fixed some of the more glaring problems. First and foremost, they still limit attachments to 32 character names, regardless of the fact that OS X has supported 255 for two years now. This is truly irritating. Also, some HTML mail will cause the program to 'hang' (although it will timeout after a while). I think this is due to servers no longer being around when the mail tries to read from them (yes, its mostly a spam problem, but there are times you don't realize its spam until you click on it). But at least you have the ability to turn off HTML mail by default, or only show it if there's no plain text. (And if you click and hold the globe icon at the bottom of the window, you can show HTML in the mail window, rather than in a browser).
Filters are nice, but could be more customizable. If there's a filter criteria in a long list of criteria you want to delete, there's no way to easily do it. You have to update it with the last item's criteria, then delete the last item. And, most irritating, you can't search the body of text in a filter. It sure would make spam filtering easier if I could filter for some common text of those, uhum, 'enlargement' products I keep getting.
And I'm hoping this release fixes my indexing problems (I haven't been able to search for content for at least 6 months, if not longer, keep getting an error message about some LADY error).
But, besides that, its the closest thing to Emailer out there, and, for me at least, it works well and quick. (I just wish I could find something as useful and easy to use on Windows, as I can't find a decent choice there at all). -
"Worth a long look"
Version: PowerMail 4.1.3
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Some people think that HTML e-mail is wonderful, others think that HTML e-mail is inefficient when not annoying or hazardous and that it ought to be eschewed. PowerMail is for those of the latter school. It can be set to safely ignore HTML within the program but if the formatting must be seen, clicking on an icon will display the message within a web browser. All in all, I have found this to be the most convenient way of dealing with the stuff.
PowerMail's IMAP capability is limited but as a POP client it is exceptional. I have found no other POP client that can do so much with such ease and efficiency, no matter how many messages are stored. Compared to Apple's Mail, it is more responsive, more straightforward for novice users and more versatile for advanced ones. The only way Mail is superior, as a POP client, is that Mail's spam filtering, although less powerful potentially, does not require specifying a lot of rules.
Overall, PowerMail seems to have fewer bugs than Mail but in recent releases its address book has been unstable--I recommend the option to use Apple's address book by default--and it cannot cope with network glitches if its database is located on another computer and accessed by ethernet. This is not a suitable product for systems that keep the user's files on a central server.
This release fixes some bugs and ameliorates--somewhat--PowerMail's most glaring deficiency, which is its documentation. The documentation has now been improved from woeful to marginal. It still does not explain, for instance, PowerMail's unusual approach toward searching, which attempts, I think with some success, to provide the functionality of Boolean operators to users who do not cope well with Boolean logic. (Multiple words include an implicit "or", relevance scores applied to results incorporate an implicit "and probably", and searching on the results is equivalent to "and". Since all searches are indexed, successive searching is practical.)
Although PowerMail uses its own proprietary data structures, it allows easy importing from and exporting to all standard formats and several proprietary ones. It also incorporates suitable tools for repairing those data structures.
A few weeks ago I moved out of PowerMail into Apple's Mail because my wife and I had begun to keep a common address book synchronized over a number of computers, and I could not get PowerMail's address book to synchronize properly with Apple's. Using Mail felt like driving a Mazda after a Mercedes, so with this release, I tried PowerMail again. This time, however, instead of merging my address books, as I had done before, I scrapped my old PowerMail address book and started afresh by importing Apple's entire. Then the synchronization worked properly and I could see what was going in. It seems to be necessary to keep all contacts in the folder PowerMail creates called "Apple Address Book Contacts". Now I have, with pleasure, moved back in. -
"PM 4.1.3"
Version: PowerMail 4.1.3
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
When I decided that I didn't want to run Emailer in Classic anymore, I totally switched to the similar PowerMail. They are constantly improving PM and I've been very pleased with it. -
"PowerMail 'Great' Alternative"
Version: PowerMail 4.1.2
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
PowerMail 4.1.2 is a solid, dependable alternative to other Macintosh email programs. I started using PowerMail when Qualcomm dropped the ball and failed to update Eudora for OS X in a timely fashion. Remember Claris eMailer? PowerMail reminds me of it. It's that good.
I also have Apple's OS X Mail and Microsoft Entourage loaded on my machine. But PowerMail shines because of its easy-to-use interface and its clean design.
Switzerland-based CTM Development gets an A for responding to users' requests, issuing frequent updates with new features, and for just listening to what users want.
In this world, you generally get what you pay for. PowerMail is worth paying for. Download a demo. You might just like it better than your current email program. That's how I switched to this great program that really performs.
The only negative? I wish PowerMail had an updated manual. Folks on PowerMail's discussion list are real troopers that help out a lot. But a manual would benefit me.
Subscribe to PowerMail's discussion list and you'll see users from all over the world. There's a reason Mac users from different countries have chosen this very good program. 1) It just works. 2) It's not bloated like some other mail applications. 3) And it's better than Mail, the program that comes with OS X. Honest. Would I recommend PowerMail? Definitely.
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